General

Although I’m new to security encryption techniques and do not have worlds of experience or experience under my belt, I’m constantly learning more. I’m also a regular listener of the podcast Security Now with Steve Gibson on the TWIT network. Last week, the podcast was Steve’s presentation of SQRL (pronounced “squirrel”), which attempts to solve security, privacy and usabilt issues regarding the age old computing paradigm of username / password account security. To a large degree it seems that Steve’s proposal takes from the SSH paradigm used for secure logging into remote servers; namely an asymetrical key pair. Not only does this allow the user to avoid remembering a laundry-list of usernames and passwords that need to be periodically changed for optimal security, but also improves user privacy by allowing some information about the user such as email address to be excluded from the requirements for a user account. Understandably,…

Here are some links to articles and tutorials on how to get started in nodejs. Express for nodejs tutorial This is a great tutirial for getting started with nodejs. It shows how to create a package.json file and install using npm from there. This is important as a fast, reliable, and reproducable way to get the nodejs packages you need all in one place. The tutorial continues to show how to set up nodejs to listen on localhost port and also how to set up a basic router and directory / file structure. http://codeforgeek.com/2014/06/express-nodejs-tutorial/ http://codeforgeek.com/2014/10/express-complete-tutorial-part-1/ Nodejs and PHP Good article on using nodejs with PHP. I love php and it’s great they are compatible. That allows me to only apply nodejs for scripting some APIs (for example Bitcoin) and still use PHP as my main engine for serving dynamic website content. http://strongloop.com/strongblog/node-js-php-get-started/

The most important programming languages is a concern. If you want to identify trends in web-app programming, web-stack, or even mobile, back-end etc., you need to forecast changes. This can allow you to make intelligent changes in selecting which language to apply to your projects. Here in January 2014 Red Monk uses GitHub repos to identify the most important languages out there right now. I’m sorry I didn’t see this until 2014 is almost over, however I believe it’s still relevant in 2015. Here is a quote from the Red Monk article itself: <quote>" While the appetite for up to date numbers is strong, the truth is that historically changes from snapshot to snapshot have been minimal. This is in part the justification for the shift from quarterly to bi-annual rankings. Although we snapshot the data approximately monthly, there is little perceived benefit to cranking out essentially the same numbers…

December Headline: Transact-SQL programming language of 2013? TIEBO will announce language of the year next month.   Transact-SQL is expected to increase after gaining +1.30% in one year.  I code in MySQL primarily.  Visual Basic .NET (+0.80%), JavaScript (+0.53%) and F# (+0.41%) round out the top group.  I’m currently in the midst of trying to brush up my anaemic Java programming experience with a Coursera.org course on Python Programming. From the TIOBE Site: As of this month we have published our new layout for the TIOBE index for the first time. Most important improvement is the interactive trend chart. You can hover over the trends and select/unselect languages. The next few weeks/months we will add all other functionality that is missing now. One other important change is that the sum of the ratings of all languages is now 100%. In the past the sum of the first 50 languages was…

I’m currently enrolled in a Stanford Online course linked below; Writing in the Sciences.There is still time to enrol although the course has already started. The first module seemed pretty straight-forward, and I am working on the second module now. Apparently over 30,000 students have signed up for the course. It includes 10 weeks of study, unit modules which include videos, and quizzes. The first writing assignment is 300-500 review of a seminal essay from your field. All in all, the course is very easy to navigate, informative, and so far I believe I have learned something that can help me improve my writing. https://class.stanford.edu/courses/Medicine/SciWrite/Fall2013/info  

Doing some research, I discovered a patent: <a href=http://www.google.com/patents/US5026417>5026417</a>. The assignee for this patent is none other than: Her Majesty the Queen in right of Canada, as represented by the Minister of Agriculture Published: Jun 25, 1991 The country associated is Canada: CAX Here is the abstract: A method and composition for increasing the amounts of phosphorus and/or micronutrients available for uptake by plants from the soil. The invention involves introducing an inoculum of the fungus Penicillium bilaji into (or onto) the soil. This has the effect of increasing the solubility of phosphates and micronutrient sources which may be either native to the soil or added to it, e.g. in the form of insoluble rock phosphate or manufactured phosphate fertilizer. The invention can be used to increase the health, growth rates and yields of plants, especially crop plants grown on nutrient-deficient soils, while eliminating or minimizing the need for expensive…

Comparing the total number of patent grants and total number of litigation instances (LI) since 2000 we can see almost a mirror image. However, since patent litigation is leading indicator of economic growth, it can provide more sensitive data about market and economic growth. These findings are significant to notice on this scope because it shows parity between patent litigation and corporate investment in to R&D. Patent applications and renewals are expensive. The comparison further validates patent litigation’s ability to indicate value.

This weekend I’m attending ICIM 2013 in Danshui, Taipei, Taiwan. Upon my arrival the hospitality was evident. The professor Tzong-Heng Chi showed me around, gave me a history lesson, and found me a old 1875 style veranda to park myself and drink lemonade. Too perfect. Alethia university has the feeling that all institutions of education should have. The historical architecture essentially balances your thoughts and rationality is nurtured. I will do my presentation later today. Thanks Chi! Perfect spot to relax before the conference.